I was wondering what upgrade options I would have for my Prime 10" 3D arm which was swapped out for me around Dec 2016 due to an issue with my original. What does the arm come with to begin with and what options and pricing would I be looking at roughly?

I believe it is Discovery 2 or V2 option. I had the original Discovery upgraded to Nordost V2. The technical improvements - detail, vividness and speed - were all much improved, making instruments really pop. Voices, however, lost their "there-ness" and emoting by comparison. That was with a steel arm.

VinBob wrote:Thanks all. Marc kindly confirmed that the the JMW-10-3D comes with VPI wire which is very similar to Discovery wire. So it’s not actually the Discovery wire but something close to it

Mine looks like and sounds like Discovery wire. I have no complaints about the performance.

You know, a lot of this wire stuff is tied to the capacitance between the cartridge and the equalization circuit. This is why some guys hear huge differences with wire changes, and others don’t.

I’ve found the Audio Research and Conrad Johnson tube based phono sections to be exceptionally forgiving of cartridge loading issues. My solid state phono preamps have been much more sensitive to such things.

Peer Gynt wrote:Either flavor of the Fatboy would be the quick answer.

As I’m sure you know, VPI will give you 75% of retail in trade value for your current arm.

The Dual Pivot is the other quick answer, but I think you’ve already got one waiting to be installed.

There may be a rewiring option too.

Thanks as always Peer - Yes, the Dual Pivot is another possible upgrade option for me, but I am not comfortable installing it and TBH, I like the sound with the single pivot as is which some would argue, is better than the dual pivot.

I am going to keep it but will wait until there is some form of installation video, or at some point I will pluck up the courage to give it a try but at the moment, I am going to leave the setup as a single pivot point on my Prime...

Wasn’t the original price of the second pivot $120 ? Has it been made better or price just finalized? As for the Fatboy trade in option I think the price about equals what I paid for my Prime. So not even tempting to me from a budget point of view. Harry indicated (via email) there would be another cheaper option later this year that would have a threaded counterweight for easier tracking force weight adjustment. This is not the Fatboy being sold. I’m wondering how it will compare sound wise? Guess I will have to wait for others opinion.